A baby out of left field (some girl talk)

Due to it taking so long to get pregnant with Patrick another child had not even crossed our minds…we were in the midst of a move and I was still nursing…we even thought I had had an early, stressed lightened cycle (normal for me)…But then in early March I became very tired, very emotional, and always hungry…I accounted the tiredness to the fact that I had just begun homeschooling Jacob and was trying to replicate his charter school by doing every subject they did and then some, plus I had a 1 year old I was chasing around the house…but the emotional and hunger just didn’t make sense to me…so I thought maybe I could be pregnant, but that it would be too soon to test…well, the feelings didn’t go away and curiosity got the better of me…so I went and got a test…before I could even put the thing down it was positive…

Because we were once again referred off base for prenatal care I was able to go in as soon as my referral was approved…which I was guessing was about 8 weeks…well when I went in, little one had arms and legs on the ultra sound and actually looked like a baby…I was 12 weeks…I didn’t have an early cycle, I had implantation bleeding…it was kind of nice to skip the first trimester…what else was neat was the boys were allowed to go with me, this was a very family friendly OB and they got to see the Ultrasound…with Patrick Jacob was not allowed in the US room we always had to find him child care or hope he would be in school…

Just like my first two pregnancies this one was uneventful…the biggest thing that stuck out to me was I could eat nonstop all morning and at times I could tell the baby was growing because well I was still starving…

For the sex reveal US Alex and the boys got to be there…once again we had a girl name, but not a boy…and guess what (if you didn’t read my subtitle)…the baby was another boy :)…once we got into the patient room Alex was like what about Robert Gary (my dad’s middle name his dad’s first, my dad goes by Bob)…I countered with what about Robert Allen (his dad’s middle name)…so after 6 Grandsons on my Father’s-in-law side and 10 Grandsons on my dad’s side, they finally both got one name after them 🙂

Just like with Jacob I did everything I could to help little man be born and meet his big brothers…My mom and I walked a 5K, we were the last ones, it wasn’t really because I was tired or uncomfortable, we just enjoyed the walk and took our time…it was like when I was in 5th grade and we lived in FL and used to walk on the beach on base…just mom and daughter time, just chatting…We took the boys trick or treating around the neighborhood…we went to the Louisiana Board Walk and walked around…for three days she and I walked Jacob to school each morning and back (we tried the public school for one year and it was less than a mile from our house)…still nothing…

Twice I went in to the hospital, once before my mom got there and then on my actual due date thinking I was in labor…after the second time of being told nope, go home, I was devastated…this was my third kid, I should know when I am in labor…my Dr’s appointment was the next morning…Alex and I went…my Dr was taking forever, I was already down and out…well it turns out she had an emergency C-section…after she saw me she said I could go ahead and head down to labor and delivery and would be induced…

So Alex headed home to get my stuff and head headed down…I called my friend to get Jacob a ride to gymnastics and off I went…they got me all set up and the Pitocin started…this was by far my easiest delivery…the contractions started getting a little harder and painful, but honestly compared to Patrick they were nothing…Alex was on the couch on the computer and I was barely grabbing the bed rail…the nurse told me that the anesthesiologist was like 3 floors away so I used that to gage when to ask for my drugs…

So I had a contraction that wasn’t too bad but was more painful, so figured in two or three more they would get bad so paged for him…turns out he was one room away…so he gave me my happy drugs and I was good to go…I don’t remember how long it took to go from a 5 to a 10…I think it was just over an hour…but I do remember Alex wanted some coffee…I insisted he ask the nurses station, but wanted to go down stairs to the cafeteria…well in the 15 minutes he was gone that was when I felt babies head coming down…so the poor man left his wife alone in the room to come back to nurse grabbing him (she was on her way to page him) and pulling him into a room with a doc and 3 or 4 nurses…

My boys tend to have large heads…Robert’s had always measured smaller than there (large end of normal) on his US…we also joked after the first two I could birth a mac truck…anyway…I was pushing and then the Dr asked if I wanted help…I was confused…well, one of the other nurses put her fore arm across my stomach as I was pushing so that when I breathed in I didn’t suck baby back in (man that would have been nice with Jacob, he would have been born 30 minutes sooner)…so within 15 minutes Robert Allen Ham was born into the world…

On November 4, 2009 Jacob became a big brother again and Patrick became a big brother for the first time…Jacob was 7.5 and Patrick was just short of 20 months…Patrick actually did much better than we thought…he was very protective of his mommy and did not want anyone touching me…well he was fine with Robert nursing…now when Alex gave Robert his first pumped bottle, that was a different story…we used Avent bottles so the bottle is the same, just the nipple/sippy seal is changed out…anyway…he did much better than we expected 🙂